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This study aims to examine the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour by developing a moderated mediation model. The model focuses on the mediating role of role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect underpinning the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, and the moderating role of interdependent self-construal.

The two-wave survey was conducted among 265 employees. Structural equation modelling was conducted to test the mediation and moderation mediation hypotheses.

Results indicated that high activated positive affect mediated the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The authors also found that interdependent self-construal moderated the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and role breadth self-efficacy, as well as the indirect effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee silence behaviour via role breadth self-efficacy.

This empirical study provides preliminary evidence of the mediating role of breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect in the negative relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour. The moderated mediation results further show that the mediation of role breadth self-efficacy between supervisor developmental feedback is contingent on individual interdependent self-construal, such that the mediation effect is significant among individuals with high interdependent self-construal, but the mediation effect of high activated positive effect is independent of individual interdependent self-construal. The findings further extend boundary conditions (interdependent self-construal) that may constrain the effect of supervisor developmental feedback on role breadth self-efficacy and high activated positive affect. The research makes considerable contributions to the cognitive-affective personality system theory by specifying the cognitive and affective mechanisms between supervisor developmental feedback and employee silence behaviour, as well as the boundary conditions.

To reveal the effective ways for leaders to motivate employees' innovative behaviour in complex environmental situations, the leadership rapport orientation is subdivided into two types of values-based/instrumental rapport orientation. The mechanism of supervisor developmental feedback in mediating between leadership rapport orientation and employees' innovative behaviour and the moderating effect of ambidextrous environments is explored. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objective.

Leadership rapport orientation is divided into value-based and instrumental rapport orientation to reveal effective ways for leaders to motivate employees' innovative behaviour in complex environmental situations.

The results show that the values-based (instrumental) rapport orientation of leaders impacts employees' innovative behaviour positively (negatively).

Leaders' values-based/instrumental rapport orientation indirectly influences employees' innovative behaviour through supervisor developmental feedback, which positively moderates the relationship between the values-based or instrumental rapport orientation of leaders and employees' innovative behaviour and further moderates the partially mediating role of supervisor developmental feedback between leaders' values-based/instrumental rapport orientation and employees' innovative behaviour.

Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study aims to examine the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee innovative behavior, incorporating with the mediating role of psychological safety and the moderating role of face orientation.

A survey was conducted in 15 manufacturing companies in China. The participants comprised 302 employees. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The mediating effects and the moderated mediating effects are further examined with bias-corrected bootstrapping method.

Supervisor developmental feedback has a positive effect on employee innovative behavior through psychological safety, and this mediating effect is weakened by protective face orientation (fear of losing face), while the moderating effect of acquisitive face orientation (desire to gain face) is not significant.

Organizations should create a development-oriented and safe innovation atmosphere for employees. In addition, leaders should adopt differentiated feedback and communication methods according to subordinates' face orientation.

The study has demonstrated the positive effect of supervisor developmental feedback on employee innovative behavior, which is different from previous studies on performance feedback and leadership types. Meanwhile, this study has also explored the mediating effect of psychological safety and the moderating effect of face orientation, which provides more insights on the mechanism and boundary conditions of the effect of supervisor developmental feedback.

Meaningful feedback at work signals effective performance management. Drawing on a new perspective of the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this paper aims to examine the mediating effect of relational energy in the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and subordinates' task performance with the moderating role of learning demands.

Data from 230 supervisor-subordinate dyads were collected at two time points of four enterprises in China.

The results support the proposed mediation effect that supervisor developmental feedback positively predicts subordinates' task performance via boosting subordinates' relational energy. Furthermore, the results highlighted the moderating role of learning demands in the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and subordinates' relational energy. The moderated–mediated relationship for subordinates' task performance was also supported.

Drawing on COR theory, this paper contributes to a complete understanding of how supervisor developmental feedback may support or build employees' relational energy, facilitating task performance and further exploring learning demands as a boundary condition of this indirect relationship.

This paper draws from more than 25 years of research with aspiring and practicing educational leaders to present six strategies for building a culture of feedback in schools, teams, districts, professional learning opportunities, and other educational settings. These strategies reflect key elements of the authors’ new, developmental approach to feedback. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Through the lens of adult developmental theory, the authors highlight foundational learnings from open-ended survey research with 14 educational leaders about their experiences giving and receiving feedback, and prior qualitative, mixed-method, and longitudinal research with principals, assistant principals, teachers, superintendents, and other educational leaders.

The authors share six developmentally oriented strategies for establishing trust and building conditions for authentic, generative feedback: finding value in mistakes, modeling vulnerability, caring for the (inter)personal, clarifying expectations, sharing developmental ideas, and building an infrastructure for collaboration.

This work has implications for leadership and leadership preparation, especially given contemporary emphases on collaboration and high-stakes evaluations as tools for ongoing improvement, enhancing professional capital, and internal, individual, and system-wide capacity building.

Because a developmental perspective has been noticeably missing from the wider feedback literature and leadership preparation curricula, this work extends and enhances tenets from different fields (e.g. business, developmental psychology, educational leadership and educational leadership preparation), while also addressing urgent calls for educational reform; leadership preparation, development, and practice; and professional capital building.

Drawing on goal orientation theory, this study intends to investigate whether, how and when developmental leadership influences employees’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB) and feedback avoidance behavior (FAB).

The authors used a two-wave survey of 416 full-time employees in China. The hypotheses were tested with path analyses.

Developmental leadership exerts a positive influence on employees’ FSB and a negative impact on FAB through learning goal orientation (LGO). Additionally, leaders’ high performance expectations (LHPE) not only strengthen the positive effects of developmental leadership on FSB but also intensify its weakening effects on FAB.

The findings enrich current understanding by associating developmental leadership with employees’ FSB/FAB, offering a new viewpoint on its positive impacts. This study also provides deeper insights into when the benefits of developmental leadership are intensified.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize, understand, and measure positive and negative aspects of supervisor developmental feedback (SDF) and investigate their relationships with task performance.

In Study 1, common themes in SDF were identified and a set of SDF items were developed to capture the positive and negative SDF domain. Study 2 entailed the administration of the items to respondents to examine the dimensionality of the items through exploratory factor analysis. In Study 3, using confirmatory factor analysis we further examined the extent to which positive and negative developmental feedback (PSDF and NSDF) were conceptually distinct from each other and different from an existing general measure of supervisor feedback.

Study 1 and Study 2 yielded evidence that positive and negative SDF are distinct yet related constructs. Positive SDF predicted employee task performance. The positive SDF by negative SDF interaction predicted task performance.

The authors provide criterion-related validity evidence by examining the predictive validity of positive and negative SDF on subordinate task performance (reported by supervisors). Future research should examine the role of positive and negative SDF in predicting job performance in other samples and cultural contexts and for other outcomes, including organizational citizenship.

This research refines the SDF domain by identifying positive and negative domains of the SDF construct. The authors propose and test the joint influence of positive and negative SDF. The novel findings point to the importance of supervisors providing both positive and negative feedback to enhance performance.

By integrating proactive perspective and person-environment fit (P-E fit) perspective, this study intends to examine a moderated mediation model of proactive personality to investigate its effects on employee creativity. The current study proposes felt responsibility for change mediates the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. The purpose of this paper is to identify core self-evaluation (CSE) and developmental feedback received as personal and situational moderators on the relationship between proactive personality and felt responsibility for change.

A matched sample from 232 employees and their supervisors of software companies in China was used to test the hypotheses. Hierarchical regression analyses and moderated mediation approach were conducted to examine the proposed model.

The results indicate that felt responsibility for change mediates the positive relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. CSE and developmental feedback received positively moderate the relationship between proactive personality and felt responsibility for change. In addition, CSE and developmental feedback received are two moderators in the path from proactive personality to employee creativity via felt responsibility for change such as the indirect relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity through felt responsibility for change is more pronounced when CSE and developmental feedback received are higher rather than lower, respectively.

The paper contributes to creativity literature by identifying felt responsibility for change as the mediator on the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. The current study also contributes to proactive perspective and P-E fit theory by investigating the moderating roles of CSE and developmental feedback received on the relationship between proactive personality and felt responsibility for change. Although data were collected from multiple sources to avoid common method variance, the cross-sectional design cannot unequivocally examine the direction of causality in this study.

By examining both mediating and moderating effects, the paper contributes to uncovering the black box in which employees with proactive personality exhibit felt responsibility for change and creativity.

Drawing on a contagion-interpretation model of leader affective displays and leader effectiveness, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of leaders’ angry feedback on followers’ cognitive and affective reactions, and ultimately, perceived leader effectiveness across different cultural contexts.

In this paper, two experimental studies were conducted with a total of 528 participants.

The results revealed a culturally divergent cognitive effect: in Western cultures where vertical collectivism is low, leaders’ angry feedback reduced followers’ inferred developmental intention and subsequently, perceived leader effectiveness, whereas in East Asian cultures where vertical collectivism is high, leaders’ angry feedback reduced the two variables to a lesser extent or did not have any effect. In contrast, there was a culturally convergent emotional effect: the impact of leaders’ angry feedback on followers’ negative emotions and subsequently, perceived leader effectiveness was the same, regardless of the level of vertical collectivism.

This research is the first to demonstrate that culture – in particular, the dimension of vertical collectivism – has different impacts on the two mechanisms (i.e. cognitive and affective) through which leader’s angry feedback influences followers’ perceived leader effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between intelligence and behavior during leader development.

As part of a leader development program, a variety of measures are collected, including measures of intelligence and measures of performance (e.g. assessment center performance, a 360-degree appraisal). The participants are given performance feedback from a variety of sources then asked to form developmental goals. The goals are examined for goal quality and goal-feedback correspondence, and examined in relation to intelligence.

Intelligence was positively related to goal-feedback correspondence. Intelligence was also related to goal quality after controlling for variance attributed to professional discipline.

Personality, gender, age, and other variables were not included in this study. Other factors, such as the cultures of the organizations from which the individuals hailed, were also not included. Moreover, the conclusions were based on the behaviors exhibited in one leader development program. Future research should address these limitations.

Leader development is expensive and is becoming more popular. The results of this research could help organizations better determine who is likely to benefit from the investment in leader development.

In addition, a unique method is presented in the study for measuring leader development behavior based on goal quality and goal-feedback correspondence. Generalizability theory is applied in order to determine the reliability of the measures.